Romeo Pimp
Charlotte Salisbury as Jamie
Photo: Nate Colitto
King Black Box and One East Productions/Romeo Pimp by Jesse McQueen, directed by Sophie Ann Rooney, King Black Box Theatre, closes Oct. 5.
You have to walk up three flights of stairs to see Romeo Pimp, but the climb is worth it.
This powerful new Canadian play by Jesse McQueen packs a wallop with its raw unblinkered exposé of human/sex trafficking.
The mandate of King Black Box under artistic director Sophie Ann Rooney is to produce socially urgent plays. This means that gritty realism, no matter how uncomfortable, comes with the territory, and Romeo Pimpis not easy to watch.
Rooney got interested in the topic of human/sex trafficking by overhearing a group of mothers in a schoolyard discussing the number of high schoolers that were being targeted. It was a conversation that left her profoundly shaken. After much research into this very disturbing subject, Rooney approached McQueen to write a play, and the result is Romeo Pimp.
Until this play, I had never heard the expression Romeo Pimp OK.
In simplistic terms, it goes something like this.
A Romeo gets a vulnerable Juliet to fall in love with him. When she is hopelessly hooked, he manoeuvres her into a situation where she has to have sex with a stranger in order to save him from some terrible harm. He is her Romeo Pimp and Juliet has just been trafficked.
The performing space at King Black Box is quite small while McQueen’s play fields eight characters. Rooney, who also functions as set designer, has cleverly constructed false walls to create three more doors and a window to allow for more exits and entrances, and yes characters even go in and out of the window. The door to the actual hallway is also used.
Wearing her other hat as stage director, Rooney proves adept at moving large numbers of people through small spaces and what is more astonishing, it all feels so real. Playwright McQueen set her central action in a teenager’s bedroom and that is Rooney’s ground zero for manoeuvring her cast through the plot points of Romeo Pimp.
Romeo Pimp
Photo: Nate Colitto
For much of the play there are two parallel storylines.
The major focus is on 17-year-old high school senior Jaimie (Charlotte Salisbury) who has a very low self -image compounded by the fact that she only got into the chorus of the school show, while her very popular friend Paige (Athena Kaitlin Trinh) was cast as a lead. Paige also seems to have tons of suitors while Jaimie has never had a boyfriend. Despite these differences, Paige is a loyal friend.
Jaimie has a busy father she never sees, a busy working mother Lisa (playwright McQueen) who tries to exert discipline, and a rather obnoxious but endearing younger brother Connor (Brennan Bielefeld). Mr. Tremblay (Jack Creaghan) is a math teacher at the high school.
The other story that at first seems disconnected from Jamie’s story involves Shane (Sam Wexler) and Michaela (Juliettte Diodati) and it is with this couple that we see the classic Romeo Pimp scenario play out.
Lastly there is Ryan (Agape Mngomezulu) who becomes Jaimie’s boyfriend and he is the bridge between Jaimie and Shane.
Teens are devious and sadly parents find out about things when it’s too late for action. Beyond anything else, Romeo Pimp is a cautionary tale. Jaimie was just ripe for the picking, and even worse, what holds these trafficked girls in these terrible situations is that they feel dirty and tarnished and are too ashamed to go home which even deepens the tragedy.
Rooney has a razor- sharp eye for casting, and I noticed this perfection in characterization in last year’s production of George Walker’s Girls Unwanted. The same can be said for the actors in Romeo Pimp. It’s hard to imagine anyone else playing these roles.
In the central character of Jaimie, Salisbury goes from a discontented but innocent teenager to become what she sees as someone who has sunk to the very depths of depravity. Her journey through this character arc is a remarkable feat of acting, and there are some scenes of such emotional intensity that it’s almost unbearable to sit through.
Another very strong performance comes from Diodati as Michaela, but among the embarrassment of riches that make up this cast, perhaps the most vile characterization is Wexler’s despicable Shane, oozing his oily charm from the first moment we see him. I don’t know about anyone else but I hated him from the start.
Kudos should be extended to McQueen for finding a way through a harrowing drama to bring attention to the underreported human/sex trafficking plague that is destroying not only lives but families.
I have great respect for Rooney, King Black Box and the substantive plays that they mount in their third-floor aerie. Those three flights of stairs can lead to outstanding theatrical experiences.